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Magnetic Gear Wall

Build your own machine with gears, pulleys, cams, and other mechanical devices.

Mechanisms are fascinating, and extremely important to our world, from power stations to electric toothbrushes. You may want to build a complicated machine or just make some gears turn, or anything in between. Allowing you to learn about mechanisms as you play.

It is based aroung magnetic hubs which hold gears and pulleys in between them.

This both allows the gears to be put wherever you like, allowing the correct gear spacings at any angle, and means that if a finger gets in the mechanism the gears slide before the finger is damaged.

The gears will lock together between layers allowing you to connect gears to pulleys and build large gear trains.

There are a series of fixed modules around the edge of the exhibit including:

Motors

A clock face

Or a speedo, that shows how fast the gear is turning

There are also various other parts that allow you to convert rotary motion to linear motion:

A rack and pinion

A crank

And you can use sliding cranks to make hands wave

The exhibit will work vertically or horizontally, or a combination of both. It could work as a single unit or multiple so more visitors can explore at once.